"It was always clear to me that I would not do more than two terms, and now is a good time. The work on the council is very time-consuming, and that comes on top of my main activities in research and teaching and as head of a university center in Frankfurt. It is always a difficult balancing act between university activities and the Council," Wieland said. With nine annual reports, three special reports, three productivity reports and 20 economic forecasts, he has done his part.
In the ministries, Wieland would like to see "more academic economists working for a limited time in full employment at a high level in the Chancellor's Office, the Ministry of Economics and the Ministry of Finance." They could work analytically on economic policy issues in the ministries that go beyond day-to-day business and feed them into the political process, he said.
According to Wieland, the Council of Economic Experts should move away from focusing on its annual report. "Everyone puts an extreme amount of work and analytical power into the report, which is often 500 pages long." But that is inefficient, he said. "You can't even explain all of that in the one-hour press conference where the report is presented. So only a small part is disseminated in the media. Politicians can't process the mass of issues that quickly either," Wieland warned.
The complete interview is available here.
To the press release of the German Council of Economic Experts
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Tagesschau.de: "Will die Politik unabhängigen Rat?"
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